Big News!

Today was the big day! In fact I'm skipping Church to work on the blog. We got to see our little baby!! I was so excited, but I couldn't have imagined how amazing this experience would be. As I mentioned on Facebook, I started feeling the baby move 12 days ago, and the past week the baby has REALLY been moving especially when I lay down (in fact he's moving right now). The coolest thing I have ever experienced was seeing the baby move the same time I could feel it, and boy was he a mover!! It just had me in tears the whole time! I don't think he remained still for more than a few seconds during the ultrasound... he even flipped over a couple times the 30 minutes we were in there. The tech had a hard time getting pictures because he was moving all over the place. Here are some of the pictures...well pictures of the pictures. A little ghetto, but you get the idea. It was the fastest 30 minutes of my life.

As you can see, she had no doubt he was a boy!His cute little feet!

He has one hand behind his head and the other by his face. Such a cutie! :)

One pleasant surprise was they created a DVD of the ultra sound. Here is part of the video...it's a recording of the video playing on my lappy so it's not that great a quality. But you get the picture.

Although it was a dreary, rainy day outside, it was one of the best days of my life! The doctor said that either he's going to be a big baby or my due date is a week earlier. I'm pretty positive that my due date is correct so I'm guessing he's going to be a big fella like his daddy. I am 20 weeks today, and his weight is 14 ounces (the avg is 10). I won't mention how much I gained this month....not as much as last time, but it was still a lot. I can't even blame it on holiday sweets because the thought of them just makes me sick. Over the past two weeks, I've only had one small piece of pumpkin pie and a small piece of peppermint bark. Anyway, we are thrilled to be having a little boy (especially Zac)! God is good!

My furry friend

While Zac was out getting groceries on Saturday, I decided to wash the dog. It is a humorous cycle that always makes me laugh so I figured I'd share. It starts with me turning on the kitchen faucet and getting a Sammy towel out of the laundry room. Knowing that it is now bath time, Sammy runs out of the kitchen or living room and hides under our bed. (Yes, that is torn up tissue under the bed...he's been a little mischievous lately) He always gives me a cute, pathetic look that makes me laugh, but I grab him anyway...which is getting more difficult now with my stomach getting larger. He does good once I start washing him in the sink (I didn't get a picture of that since I was by myself). Next, I blow dry his hair which may seem over the top, but if I don't he will dry his fur by rubbing his body and face all over our carpet till the carpet's wet and he is dry. As you can see below. He still does it some after I blow dry him, but only for a bit. Lastly, he runs like a crazy dog into the laundry room demanding his reward for such a torturous experience. Of course he can't eat the treat right away. He has to carry it around the house looking for a place to hide it, but after 5 minutes he still hasn't found the proper place to hide it so he decides to go ahead and eat it. And that is what happens every time Sammy gets a bath. He is my adorable, predictable dog whom I love!

I'm almost halfway there!

Today I begin my 5th month, and I will find out the sex in 2 weeks...on Dec. 30th!! I have no "feeling" about whether it will be a boy or a girl. Of course Zac would like a boy first, but we're good with whatever. I am excited to know so I can buy some bedding and curtains. It's no fun looking at a bare room with bare furniture in it. So far I've not noticed feeling any movement...I think it's just been gas bubbles that I've felt. Unfortunately no food cravings yet...just aversions. As a born food lover, I'm actually quite ready to crave food, but the thought of it still makes me ill. Luckily I can eat just about anything as long as it's not garlicky, herby, or have a very strong flavor, but nothing ever sounds good. The one thing I do eat/chew non-stop is cinnamon gum...Stride and Trident have become my favorites. I am chewing it from the moment I brush my teeth in the morning till I go to bed at night. I also had to switch to close-up toothpaste about a month ago because the strong minty flavor in most toothpaste didn't sit well with me.

I felt so much better this past month than I have the two months before...for that I am VERY thankful! I still have to take the meds and wear my bands, but it is so much more manageable now than it was. I keep trying to skip a pill or not wear my bands, but I start to go down hill fast. It's a good thing I've got great insurance because it looks like I'll be taking meds most of my pregnancy...another thing to be thankful for! Without insurance the generic Zofran costs a little over $4 a pill...I pay that much for 13. Another thing to be thankful for is that I only have 2 more days of work, and then I'll be off for 2 weeks! I always feel better when I don't have to get up early and go to work.

I was told there is a good chance our baby will be really smart. Jane Pollock (one of the authors of a leading educational book, Classroom Instruction That Works - also known as Marzano's high yield strategies) came to talk with all the curriculum leaders in our district. The curriculum director told her I've had a lot of trouble with nausea when she found out I was pregnant. She then proceeded to tell me that she read in a medical research journal that there is a strong correlation with women who are sick much of their pregnancy and high levels of intelligence. Our director said that the son his wife was sick with her whole pregnancy ended up scoring a 36 on his ACT. So I'm hoping our baby falls into that "strong correlation." :) Actually I'll be happy just to have a healthy baby. The lady was amazing to listen to and has the best memory of anyone I know...especially anything to do with medical research. She was inspiring, but I left feeling pretty dumb...I guess that's because my mom wasn't sick at all with me. ;)

Catching Up

I've got a lot of catching up to do from the past couple weeks so this will be a bit longer of a blog. For the week of Thanksgiving, Zac and I went to OKC and had a great week! It was so nice to spend 5 straight days in one place instead of hopping all over Oklahoma. Tuesday I ate lunch with Avery while Zac worked out of the OKC branch for the day. Those kindergartners are so cute and love adult attention! I had to fight off 3 other kids who tried to sit by me before Avery got there. I felt like the big bully saying "seat's taken."


That evening went to see the 3D IMAX showing of "Christmas Carol" with Zac's family and my sisters. It was a fun show to watch, but definitely not a kids movie. Zane and Avery were not impressed and spent much of the time covering their eyes. Here are a couple pictures from the theatre. The first one is everyone that went besides Britt & Zac.

For our Thanksgiving meal we were at Patty's house with her side of the family. There was a lot of family there that we hadn't seen in awhile, and we had a lot of fun catching up. Unfortunately we didn't really take any pictures of the event. I was excited to see how cute Sammy's turkey shirt turned out that Kayla made. I think the other dogs were jealous! ;)

Later that afternoon we went to hang out with his dad's side of the family. We had fun playing games and visiting...again we only took like one picture and very few people are in it.
Since we're doing Christmas this year with my family, Patty and Stephanie came to our house this weekend to do our own Christmas thing as well as celebrate Zac's 30th birthday. We were so happy they came to visit us! We love to have company and very few venture our way. While they were here we went to Silver Dollar City to see the millions of Christmas lights and eat all day long!
We got lots of great gifts during our gift exchange. Sammy LOVED my snoogle (pregnancy pillow). He was passed out on it minutes after I opened it.
-Z-
This week it seems everywhere I looked there was something reminding me that I was bout to turn the dirty thirty. A song on the radio called "my next 30 years", a 'very special episode' of friends where they are all talking about being 30, and even my beloved ESPN is running a '30 for 30' series. Surprisingly, I feel pretty good about the dirty thirty it is just a number and every day is the best day of my life. I was thinking about all the adventures I have had so far, and I am pretty sure it won't compare to being a dad. On a side note, every year I forget to make a wish before I blow out my candles, this year was no exception, remembered about the time the last candle went out.

16 week appointment

I'm a little behind on the blog. I'll do Thanksgiving break in a couple days because I want to post my 16 week check up from this past Wednesday. This week the baby is about the size of an avacado.

Overall everything was good. The doctor said that the top of my uterus is about one or two fingers below my belly-button which is crazy to think about! I will say I got one piece of bad news...I contemplated not even putting it on here. When I got on the scale it showed that I've gained 8 pounds in 4 1/2 weeks!! I know I shouldn't be shocked because I'm still not well enough to do much exercise, and I have to eat every 2 hours to keep from getting sick...but come on 8 lbs?! Anyway, the doctor reassured me that he's not concerned about my spike in weight gain. He said that it's not uncommon to have a sudden increase one month, and that most likely my weight gain will be a lot more slow and steady the next couple months. Later that night I was eating my 8:00 snack of popcorn, and I was complaining to Zac that the light popcorn didn't have near enough butter on it. He made a smart-alleck comment about gaining 8 lbs. I died laughing because I knew he was kidding...he has never made a comment about my weight and if he would have been serious I would have killed him. Unfortunately I can't remember the comment...I know very anti-climatic. The past couple weeks I've been a lot more scattered and forgetful (common pregnancy thing). I keep asking Zac the same questions over and over because I truly forget that I already asked him...he loves it when I do this! :)

Below is the video of the heartbeat. We will find out the sex of the baby Dec. 30th, and we can't wait!